


Playing Nice

by fallen_arazil



Series: Sex and Cigarettes [5]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Anal Sex, D/s, Dirty Talk, Dom Arthur, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Pre-Canon, Rough Sex, Sub John, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 03:18:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20717207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_arazil/pseuds/fallen_arazil
Summary: Happy Friday, here's some very kinky cowboy porn.Arthur leaned over him, looming from the side of the cot, bracing his hands on the frame on either side of John's arms. "I'm nice to people who want nice," he said lowly, and even drunk and bleary as he was, John couldn't look away from Arthur's eyes, dark and intense, flickering in the lamplight. "You don't want nice, John."





	Playing Nice

**Author's Note:**

> This is the end of this series. I've been working on this installment for a while, and I think it says about all I have left to say on this topic. It's been a fun ride, hope you all have enjoyed. XOXO

Drinking with Arthur was always a bad idea, for … well, for a _lot_ of reasons, actually—alcohol made John dumb (dumber) and whiskey in particular made him talkative and maudlin, neither of which Arthur had much patience for—but in particular, because matching Arthur drink-for-drink never ended in John's favor. Arthur had forty pounds of muscle and ten years of drinking over him, and what would make Arthur agreeably tipsy would make John absolutely shit-faced.

And the combination of being chatty, maudlin, dumb and sloppy drunk in front of Arthur inevitably ended in humiliating himself.

Case in point.

"Why're y'always sooo _mean_ t'me?" John whined into Arthur's shoulder, words slurring together.

Arthur gave him an incredulous glance, looking up from the journal he'd been idly sketching in while John had been sinking further and further against his shoulder. "Jesus, I'll keep my whiskey for myself, then, next time," Arthur replied, annoyed.

"Thas not— y'know wha I mean." John persisted. He still had the whiskey bottle in his hand, and raised it to his mouth, only to have Arthur snatch it away before it touched his lips.

"I know you're talking shit. Y'always do when you're drunk." He said, taking a long pull himself.

"An' _you_ talk shit when y'r _horny_," John replied, reaching across Arthur to paw at his hand for the bottle. Arthur slapped his hand away, which wasn't very difficult, admittedly.

"You like me to," Arthur said, easily, which John couldn't really deny, but …

"It would'n' kill ya to be _nice_ to me once inna while," he complained, reaching again for the bottle.

"_Nice_?" Arthur sneered, holding the bottle out of John's reach. "Right, I'm puttin' you to bed, you're drunker'n I thought."

John grumbled under his breath when Arthur levered him to his feet with a shoulder under his arm, but didn't fight him, peering at that ground to see where he was putting his feet. "Yer nice ta _other_ people."

"I ain't nice, period," Arthur grunted, dragging John towards his own tent, which was closer. "You go spreading lies like that 'bout me, I'll show you how mean I can get."

John snorted, tripping over his own feet, and Arthur had to grab him by the back of his shirt to keep him from falling flat on his face. "You— y'bought Ab'gail a shawl last week, outta yer own pocket, 'n y'only been knowin' 'er two weeks."

"Maybe I'm just trying to fuck her," Arthur said, right before he dropped John face-first right onto Arthur's own cot. "Not everyone is as easy as you."

"So you, you," John rolled over onto his back clumsily, nearly falling off the cot, saved by Arthur shoving him back with a hand in the center of his chest, "y'r only nice t'people that _won't_ fuck you?"

Arthur leaned over him, looming from the side of the cot, bracing his hands on the frame on either side of John's arms. "I'm nice to people who want nice," he said lowly, and even drunk and bleary as he was, John couldn't look away from Arthur's eyes, dark and intense, flickering in the lamplight. "You don't want nice, John."

John blinked for a moment, transfixed, before slurring, almost absently, "E'ryone wants nice."

Arthur's mouth quirked up at the corner, briefly, his expression almost playful, and then he leaned down and put his mouth right over John's.

John gasped in surprise, flailing for Arthur's shoulders as Arthur pressed down over him with one knee on the cot, one palm cradling John's jaw. Arthur used the opening to slide his tongue into John's mouth, gliding it lazily across the inside of his lip, the backs of his teeth, like he was learning the shape by feel. Twisted his tongue around John's when John finally tried to kiss back, tasting like whiskey and cigarettes. Nibbled gently at John's bottom lip when he started to pull away, pecking close-mouthed at the corner of his lips.

And then dropped his other hand right down on top of John's absolutely flaccid dick.

"You don't want nice, John," he said again, laughing when John looked down his own body with a betrayed expression.

"It's broken," he said mournfully, drunkenly, "you broke me."

"You were broken when I met you, John." Arthur replied, standing. "We both were. Not much to be done about it now."

*

John went to dunk his head in the pond in the morning, feeling hung over and awful, hoping it might at least ease the powerful aching in his head. Abigail Roberts, their newest girl, was already there when he stumbled to the shore, sitting on a rock and sipping her coffee. She watched him splash water on his face with an expression of superior amusement, smiling with teeth when he glared at her from under his dripping hair.

"I imagine you had a very productive night, Mister Marston?" She drawled, slurping her coffee obnoxiously.

"… there any more coffee?" He replied, instead of any of the more inflammatory things running through his mind, and she nodded over to the scout fire, still smirking.

"Clean's a good look for you, Mister Marston," she called after him. "Try it more often!"

He staggered his way over to fire, where Mac and Joshua were already standing, sipping from their own cups. They snickered under their breath as John, grumbling, poured himself a cup, drank the entire thing in one go, and then poured a second.

"Fun night?" Mac drawled, and John growled in reply.

"Lemme the hell alone," John muttered

"Yeah, let him alone, Mac," Joshua laughed, "ain't Marston's fault he can't hold his liquor—look at him, he's built like a bird."

"Fuck you both," he snapped back, and turned towards the central fire. There was no one there yet, so he dropped down onto a log to drink his coffee in surly silence. His eyes felt gummy, his stomach was rolling uncomfortably, and the sunlight glinting off the pond felt like it was cutting directly through his skull.

He startled nearly hard enough to knock himself off the log when a heavy bottle was dropped into his lap, and looked up to see Arthur standing over him, hat shading his eyes, clean-shaven and clear-eyed.

"Quick your sulking and drink that," he said, pointing to the health tonic in John's lap. "We're leaving in an hour."

"Leaving?" John repeated dumbly, as he uncorked the bottle and took a long swig. "Where we goin'?"

"Into town with some of the women," Arthur said shortly. "Make sure you change your goddamn clothes, first, or I'm dunkin' you in the pond. You smell like a saloon floor."

"Yessir, boss," John sneered, but he obediently gulped down the rest of the tonic, and went to change his clothes.

*

The tonic rolled around uncomfortably in his stomach for a while, but by the time he was climbing up into the wagon next to Arthur it had started to work—his head felt clearer, cleaner, and his stomach had settled from a roiling nausea to a steady ache. He felt well enough, anyway, to bicker with Arthur about who would take the reins, Hannah and Abigail tittering in the back when Arthur near knocked him out of the wagon with an elbow to his ribs.

"Would you just fuckin' _settle_ already, Jesus," Arthur chided him, passing him a packet of cigarettes after he'd placed one between his own lips. "You're like a goddamn child."

"Are we there yet?" John quipped back, which resulted in Arthur cuffing him on the back of his head, knocking his hat askew.

"Honestly, you're as bad as each other," Miss Grimshaw tutted. "Now, if you boys are done _roughhousing_, perhaps we can get going."

"Yes'm," Arthur replied, instantly sitting up all nice and straight, schooling his face into looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. He threw John a warning, quelling look, before he started the wagon along the trail.

"Now, Miss Roberts," Miss Grimshaw was saying behind them, "don't think that just because you're new, you need to take any guff from these fellers. They need us womenfolk around to tell 'em when they're actin' a fool, which is most of the time."

"We're sittin' right here," John complained.

"And I'm not saying anything you don't already know," Miss Grimshaw replied sharply.

"Don't worry, Miss Grimshaw," Abigail put in, "in my line of work I learned the nature of men very early. Your men seem better'n a lot of 'em."

"Well, of course they are," Miss Grimshaw agreed easily, "Dutch wouldn't stand for any less. Don't mean they ain't fools, though."

"Now, you're fixin' to hurt my delicate feelings, Susan," Arthur drawled, glancing lazily back over his shoulder. The horses were well trained enough to follow the road without too much guidance. "You're gonna bias the young lady 'gainst us 'fore she even knows us. I would hate her to think we weren't _nice_."

John darted his eyes to Arthur's face, feeling unfairly outraged at the jab, and found Arthur smirking back at him, eyes dark, a blatant challenge. He clearly wanted the reaction, so John just crossed his arms over his chest with a huff and looked out over the side of the wagon.

John knew it was childish, but he sulked the rest of the ride, boiling internally. Damn if Arthur didn't know how to get to him in just a few words. By the time they got to Opportunity he was in a fine temper, slamming the supplies into the back of the wagon while Arthur practically _whistled_ while they loaded up, absolutely tickled pink at getting a rise out of John.

The women found it less entertaining. "You're pouting like a twelve year old," Abigail pointed out to him, while Arthur was in the general store. "Have been all day. Ain't exactly attractive."

"When Arthur's been needling you since last night, you can tell me how you feel about it," John replied shortly, not really in the mood for some seventeen-year-old whore to tell him off.

"Well, what I saw was he gave you his whiskey, his bed, one'a his tonics, and his cigarettes. Goodness, what a brute," Abigail rolled her eyes. John opened his mouth to snap back, and then paused.

Arthur split his whiskey with him drink for drink, letting John loll against his shoulder by the campfire. Put him to bed in Arthur's own cot, a far nicer night's sleep than he deserved. Pressed a health tonic on him when he was shaking off the hangover. Traded cigarettes with him even as he was telling him off for his attitude.

"That's— he would do that for anyone," John argued back, weakly.

"If you say so," Abigail replied coolly. "You ought to know him better'n me."

John didn't miss her phrasing—not you do, or you would, but you _ought_ to. "I _do_ know him better," John muttered back, petulant, but the words stayed with him while he packed the wagon, shoving the provisions around crossly. The idea that Abigail, only in the camp two weeks, thought she was seeing something that he wasn't in Arthur, in how Arthur treated him, made him even more annoyed, made the aggravation under his skin even worse.

Arthur was _actually_ whistling when he came out of the store, Hannah hanging off his arm, as she would any time he'd let her. He was tucking the remaining money into his satchel along with another pack of cigarettes—the pack he'd had this morning was tucked into John's pocket.

John was still angry. But he suddenly kind of felt like a piece of shit, too.

So of course, John dealt with the feeling the only way he knew how—by getting into a fistfight with Joshua Miller as soon as he got back to camp.

*

"The hell is wrong with you today?" Arthur snapped as he shoved John ahead of him down the path towards the pond. He'd had to pulled John away from Joshua by the back of his collar; Joshua was bigger and heavier but John was angrier, making it just about a fair scrape. "Be pissy if it suits you but you can't go 'round startin' dumb fights for no reason!"

"You've fought with Josh yourself, he's a prick," John argued back, swiping a hand across his face that came away bloody.

"This ain't about me—" Arthur started to argue, which was so stupid that it immediately made John flip around and shove at Arthur's chest with both hands, like he was itching for another fight.

"Of course it's about _you_, you goddamn asshole!" He snapped. "You— you talk to me like I'm a child or an idiot, go outta your way to rile me, never got a kind word to say 'about me, but you keep— you keep _giving_ me things and fucking me and— fuck, half the time I don't know if you even _like_ me at all!"

"I like you fine, John," Arthur said, rolling his eyes, but it was that same patronizing tone he'd used when he'd told John to _settle_.

So John punched him.

It was half-hearted, a statement more than a real act of violence, but it still resulted in Arthur's hand immediately closing around his throat, right under his jaw, shoving him back against the nearest tree with bone-jarring force.

"If you really want me to be _nice_, John," he murmured darkly, eyes blazing, "you're going 'bout it in a very strange way."

Then he pressed closer, slotting one thick thigh up between John's legs.

"But we both know that's not what you really want, don't we?"

"It even matter to you what I want?" John said hoarsely.

Something strange twisted across Arthur's face at that, gone before John could parse it. Arthur's grip on his throat loosened, his hand sliding down to settle at the base of his neck, fingers open.

"Right," he said, slowly, hand working its way under the collar of John's shirt, thumb gliding across his knife-sharp collarbone, "because what you _want_ is for me to be _nice_."

Arthur's expression and movements walked a fine line between a threat and a tease, but that was about par for the course for Arthur. John swallowed thickly, Adam's apple bobbing. "Would make for a change, anyway," he said carefully.

"'Cause I think I been plenty _nice_," Arthur continued, his voice dangerous. "Did you forget it was _you_ that came to _me_, _beggin_' to get on your knees for me? And I let you, even though you were clearly _shit_ at it—weren't that _nice_ of me?"

The memory of exactly what Arthur was describing was vivid, all the times John had trailed after Arthur, pawing at him pathetically to get his mouth on his dick. It was humiliating to hear Arthur's disdain for it, whether he truly meant it or not, and John shuddered, hands flexing where they hung at his side, caught between throwing another punch, and grabbing desperately at Arthur's hips so he could grind harder against his thigh. He didn't _want_ to be achingly hard right then but he _was_, that tone in Arthur's voice and that threat in his eyes inspiring an almost reflexive response.

"Nothing to say to that, Johnny?" Arthur pressed, with his words and with his leg, thigh pressing up against John's rigid dick hard enough that it didn't feel like anything but _pain. _John let out an embarrassingly high noise, hands scrabbling at the tree behind him, because putting his hands on Arthur would end badly right now, one way or another.

"You got off every time," John bit out between gritted teeth. "Couldn't've hated it that much."

"Guess I still liked seeing you on your knees, panting like a whore, even if you weren't too good at what you did while you were down there," Arthur replied lightly, as if he were talking about the weather. John's hips twitched involuntarily against the painful pressure of Arthur's thigh, and Arthur pressed up closer, putting the hand that wasn't on John's skin against the bark of the tree, closing him in. "See, this has always been about _you_, John. _You_ wanted to get on your knees for me. _You_ wanted me to put you in your place. _You_ wanted me to throw my weight around, and don't act like you didn't. And now you get it in your head that you want _'nice'_? Well, here's the thing, Johnny—_I don't want to play nice for you_."

Arthur leaned even closer, close enough that his breath ghosted across John's ear when he spoke.

"I ain't your fuckin'_ sweetheart_, John," he murmured, his voice smokey and dangerous. "You want to try out 'nice', you c'n go find some pretty whore who'll play the virgin for you, who'll tell you how _handsome_ and _big_ and _good_ you are. You want something that'll actually _get you off_, you come find me and _maybe_ I'll be _nice_ enough to give it to you."

And then Arthur stepped back, easy as that, leaving John to almost collapse without Arthur pinning him, his knees as wobbly as a colt's, his breath short. He felt like he'd just run a mile, jittery with adrenaline like he'd just been in a shootout, but there was nothing similar in Arthur's casual, loping gait as he turned his back on John and walked away.

It was a challenge, a taunt—the idea that Arthur's _kindness_ was in tolerating John at all, the idea that Arthur knew better than John himself what John _needed_ and _wanted_. John stood by the pond for near a quarter hour, catching his breath, leaning against the tree behind him for support like a drunk, stewing in his own pride and competitiveness. It shouldn't be about who won or lost, but if he was honest, it _was_—Arthur had one up on him in nearly everything, and John couldn't bear to give him this, too. He stalked back into the camp without having any relief from the agitation under his skin.

Arthur was usually the antidote for that. But Arthur clearly wasn't an option right then.

He stalked past Pearson's wagon on his way back, where Hannah and Abigail were sorting the new provisions, and Abigail of course couldn't let his thundercloud of an expression pass without comment. "Well now, I thought for sure you would be coming back with two black eyes! Instead you just got a black cloud!" She called out to him, nudging Hannah with an elbow. "Arthur didn't tan your hide, then?"

"As if he would!" Hannah laughed, nudging her back. "Surely you've noticed how Arthur coddles that boy."

"Sure I have," Abigail agreed in a drawl. "Seems like the only one that hasn't noticed is _him_."

It was on the tip of John's tongue to snap back at them, Hannah with her cloying infatuation with Arthur, and Abigail with her seemingly bottomless desire to rile him, but something stopped him. Something about how Abigail got under his skin the way few people could, something about the way Arthur had taunted him only moments before to _find some pretty whore_, something about how Abigail's pointed teasing reminded him of Arthur's offhand belittlement …

Something about proving something.

So instead he went back to his tent, dragged a horn comb through knotted hair, and went back to ask Abigail to go for a walk.

Abigail Roberts, it turned out, was actually a fairly easygoing sort when she chose to be. Or maybe she was just _easy_.

*

"Wait," Abigail said, when they had gone near halfway around the pond, and after several coy looks had earned her very little reaction, "are we really just going for a _walk_?"

"What's wrong with that?" John said defensively, shoulders tensing up.

"Nuthin', nuthin'," Abigail immediately replied, raising her hands, as if in surrender, "just … we both know what a man means when they say they want to 'go for a walk' or 'pass some time' with a woman—if I weren't up for it I wouldn't have said yes."

"Is it so unheard of that a man might to _actually_ spend a little time with a women—or, or with anyone—just 'cause?"

"Huh," Abigail said, cocking her head. "'Round here it is, I reckon. But sure," she swept her skirts out as she lowered herself to sit on the side of a fallen tree, patting the bark beside her, "we can spend some time together, John Marston."

*

He didn't sleep with Abigail for nearly a week. He _courted_ her like a lady, walking with her arm in arm round the pond, sitting beside her at the fire to eat dinner, even taking her out for a couple rides on his horse, her small, rough hands on his waist as she rode side-saddle behind him.

It would have been impossible for the camp not to notice, but the teasing he got was bizarrely subdued. When he had slept with Tessie at a cost of two packs of cigs, the boys had laughed relentlessly about what a randy little shit he must have been to go for it, but when he was treating Abigail like a sweetheart, the worst he got was the occasional mocking cooing about how _sweet_ young love was.

Like they wanted that _for_ John, just as much as John had thought he wanted it for himself.

Arthur spent most of the time on the trail, flatly cordial when he _was_ in camp, not even interested in poking fun or telling him off. Even if Arthur _had_ been inclined to admit to jealousy, to be _possessive_, he certainly wouldn't do it in front of the rest of the camp, where anyone could see. Whatever was between him and Arthur was a secret, quiet, shadowed thing—by _necessity_, it was. What he was trying on with Abigail was something that could be had in front of God and everyone.

And it _was_ 'trying on'. The whole thing was like buying a new suit of clothes—he liked the look of it, thought it would be perfect, and then, after wearing it a while, realized exactly how tight, how ill-fitting it was, when it was probably too late to choose something else. Buyer's remorse, except he hadn't _bought_ Abigail. Easier if he had, if he were honest.

It wasn't that it wasn't _nice_. Spending time away from camp for leisure without people giving him shit about it, having conversations, having soft touches, having other people in the camp look at him with something like _approval_ in their eyes, like he was doing something _right_ for once in his life—even the sex, soft and quiet and relatively brief—_was_ nice. It was all so _nice_.

And when he looked at Abigail sitting next to him at the fire that night, with Arthur sitting across from them, face half hidden in shadow as he sketched idly in flickering of the flames, all John felt was an itching restlessness under his skin.

After they'd finished that afternoon, after Abigail had pulled up her bloomers under her skirt and John had laced up his trousers, she had given him a long, searching, almost suspicious look.

"I don't know what you're looking for, John Marston," she'd said, "but I ain't real sure if I'm it."

John wasn't too sure of that, either.

But he was also getting damn sick of other people telling him what he wanted.

Arthur sauntered off to bed early, without having said a word to him—Abigail lingered by John a bit longer, and threw a curious glance over her shoulder as she walked away, more an offer than an invitation, one John didn't take her up on.

Instead, he stayed by the fire and drank himself stupid.

Stupid_er_.

*

It must have been near 2 AM when he stumbled his way over to Arthur's caravan. Arthur was asleep in the very same cot John had slept in the last time he was this drunk; flat on his back, fully clothed, ankles and arms crossed. Arthur slept light when he was on the trail, but he always seemed to know, even in sleep, when he was among friends, and in camp he slept like the dead. He barely stirred, snoring softly, when John stumbled into one of the posts of his awning. John caught himself at the last minute, nearly planting his face in the table by Arthur's shaving kit.

Nearly planting his face in Arthur's journal—closed, but with a pencil tucked in between the pages, marking his latest entry.

If John had been sober, he might not have looked. Then again, he might have—John was always a creature of impulse.

The left page was a sketch of him and Abigail sitting by the fire—the faces were unfinished, but the picture was nonetheless immediately recognizable: Abigail leaned slightly towards him, her hand on his elbow despite the two or three inches between them, while John was sitting hunched forward, hands hanging between his knees, as if he didn't even know she was there.

On the other page: _John has always been a fool that goes after what he wants instead of what's good for him. Guess I can't say too much, as I'm much the same way. No one ever taught either of us about thinking past tomorrow. The future's hard, but at least he might get one. Son of a bitch was always lucky._

Fucking _lucky_.

"John?" Arthur slurred from beside him, half-asleep. John jerked away from the journal, wide-eyed. "John, what the hell are you—" Arthur's bleary eyes darted to the open journal, to John's guilty expression. "You spyin' on me, now?"

"I … I was just—" John fumbled.

"Christ, are you _drunk_?" Arthur asked in disbelief, pushing himself up onto his elbows. "You get liquored up and, what, think you can come crawl in with me? Fuck off back to your _woman_, boy."

"I don't— I don't want to," John slurred back

"And we both know its always about what _you_ want."

"You _told_ me—you said—to come find you. When I wanted somethin' that would get me off. Tha's what you said."

"Oh, for … I was _mocking_ you, you idiot, it weren't a goddamn _invitation_. And even if it _were_," he added, sitting up fully, throwing his feet over the side of the cot, "what I said was _maybe_, and I ain't feelin' real _nice_ right now."

"Arthur—" John wheedled, almost a whine. He tried to drop down between Arthur's knees but he stumbled and sprawled out on the cot beside him instead, face down in the threadbare sheet, feet in the dirt. Arthur cursed under his breath, sounding exasperated, and yanked John fully onto the cot with a hand fisted in the back of his collar.

"You are a fuckin' piece of work, John Marston," Arthur grumbled. "If you get mud on my goddamn sheets—"

John squirmed around awkwardly onto his back, shaking off his boots with a few awkward kicks. "You _want_ me to go back t'Abigail."

"Did I not just say that?"

"I thought you'd be _jealous_," John admitted, the liquor making him honest. "You _hated_ when I went with Tessie."

"I hated _Tessie_," Arthur snapped back instantly. "And I wasn't _jealous_, it's—she was a whore who woulda sold us out for train fare. Hell, she pretty much _did_. She weren't worth _anyone_ spending time on, and _you_—"

Arthur snapped his teeth together before he could finish the thought, but John was too drunk to leave well enough alone. "And me what?"

Arthur hesitated strangely a moment, peering at John from where he sat perched on the cot by his hip, face dimly lit by the distant firelight. When he finally moved, it was to lean over slowly, bracing his arms on the frame of the cot on either side of John's shoulders so that John was boxed in by him, Arthur the only thing he could see.

"You got some strange ideas in your head about me lately, John," he said, his voice low and oddly beguiling. "First you get this dumb idea about _nice_, and then you spout this shit about making me _jealous_? What's _nice_ about you trying to rile me on purpose? What's _nice_ about using a fine girl like Abigail to get at me?" Arthur leaned down close enough that John could feel every moist breath Arthur took on his lips. John's heart was suddenly pounding so hard that he was sure Arthur could hear it in the quiet night. "You know, John," Arthur murmured, close enough to kiss, "I may be _mean_, but at least _I_ know who I am."

John leaned up and caught Arthur's mouth for a second; a wet, clinging brush of lips, before Arthur put a hand in the middle of his chest and shoved him back against the cot with undue force.

"Sleep it off, you fucking moron," Arthur grunted, before shoving himself to his feet and stalking off.

John wasn't so drunk that he thought it was a good idea to follow him.

*

He woke up to the smell of coffee, and when he peeled his gummy eyes open, he saw Abigail standing just outside the shadow of Arthur's caravan, holding a cup of coffee and watching him. She nodded to the crate beside Arthur's cot when she saw he was awake, and John blearily looked over to find a cup of coffee sat waiting for him. It was only lukewarm when he touched it.

"I know I ain't been here that long," Abigail said meditatively, as John swung his legs over the side of the cot and cupped the coffee between his hands, "but it seems like you end up in Arthur's bed an awful lot."

"What's that supposed to mean?" John snapped, scowling into his coffee.

"Only what I said," she replied lightly. "You two are funny, you know—you snipe and snap like you can't stand each other, but Arthur does things for you he doesn't do for anyone else."

"Arthur looks out for _everybody_, that's his _job_," John protested, feeling a familiar curdled emotion in his gut, something like guilt.

"No, you're right, he does," Abigail agreed easily. "Stuff they _need_, like clothes and food. He gives _you_ stuff you _want_, like cigarettes and whiskey and a comfortable bed when you're drunk."

John sighed, setting his coffee cup aside. "Look, where are you going with this, Abigail?"

She shrugged, sipping on her coffee with a benign expression. "Just think you could stand to be a little nicer to 'im, is all."

"I'm _plenty_ nice to—" John started to say, and then choked on the words.

Hadn't Arthur said the exact same thing to John, when they last fought?

"You know," John said after a moment, brow furrowed, "I'm starting to think I don't even know what nice looks like."

"Huh," Abigail replied, and she sounded oddly struck by the statement. "Well, I reckon it looks different for different people."

"… yeah," John agreed after a moment, "yeah, I bet it does. You, uh …" he hunched over, rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly, "you seen Arthur this morning?"

"No, and Boadicea ain't at the hitchin' post, either," she replied. "Guess he went out before first light,"

John was a shit tracker, but he didn't really need to _track_ Arthur to know where he was. They'd been knowing each other since they were children—or since John was a child, anyway—and John knew exactly the sort of places Arthur went when he wanted to be alone. He also knew the area around the camp well enough to guess at a few likely spots, seeing as how they'd been camped there almost a full year.

John found him just a few hours down the river, camped in a copse of cedars. He had a deer carcass beside the fire with him, already quartered, a slab of the flesh roasting over the fire. The look he gave John when he rode up to his campfire was annoyed but unsurprised.

"Can't a man have a day or two to hisself, for God's sake?" He grumbled, scowling, but he still cut off a second cut of venison and dropped it next to the first on the grill without prompting.

Because of course he did.

"You had most of the last week to yourself, unless you was meeting up with someone I don't know about," John pointed out as he dropped down next to Arthur beside the fire—just an observation, not an accusation,.

Arthur took a swig out of a bottle of beer, expression thoughtful. "I went to see Mary Ginnis. Mary Linton now, I guess."

John jerked in shock, eyes wide. "You _what_?" he snapped, fingers curling into a fist in the dirt.

Arthur held John's gaze for a long moment, expression impassive, before he looked away with a smirk. "I didn't really. But I did enjoy puttin' that look on your face."

John scowled down at the fire. "Mary was never good for you, is all."

Arthur held up the beer he was drinking, a salute, or an illustration, before taking another drink. "Nothing I want is ever good for me."

"Me included, I guess," John replied, rueful.

"You especially," Arthur admitted after a moment, surprising John. He'd half expected Arthur to get indignant at John implying that Arthur _wanted_ him, after all the shit Arthur had said when they'd fought.

It was enough encouragement that John, creature of impulse that he was, leaned over and kissed him. Arthur almost immediately shoved him off, hard enough that John fell backwards towards the fire.

"_Shit_," he spat, almost immediately yanking John back by his shirtfront, and for a second John thought he was going to _kiss him back_, but instead, he began slapping with open palms at the flames that had sprung up on John's sleeve, where his shirt had touched the smoldering embers. John flailed for the beer Arthur had been drinking, pouring it messily down over his shoulder, soaking into his shirt and Arthur's gloves, but successfully dousing the flames.

The sat staring at each other, wide-eyed, for a second, panting, and then John couldn't contain himself anymore—he started to laugh.

"Case in fuckin' point, I guess," John giggled, swiping a hand over his face. His fingers smelled like cheap beer.

"You are an insane person," Arthur snapped back. "An absolute maniac. You been sniffing after Abigail for a _week_, and then the minute, the very _second_ you get into her britches, you immediately run after me to try and get in _mine_? Go fuck _her_, if she wants you!"

John didn't say anything to that, just grabbed at Arthur's arms, who immediately knocked John's hands away. He grabbed again Arthur's shoulders, lunging with enough force that they both fell backwards, Arthur underneath him. They rolled in the dirt for a moment, grappling without real intent to hurt, mud sticking on the places where they were both still wet from the beer. Arthur eventually got the upper hand, pinning John's hands next to his head, panting harshly.

He was hard. They both were.

"Are you _tryin'_ to piss me off?" Arthur growled.

"Yes," John replied instantly. "Is it working?"

That gave Arthur pause, made him shift slightly above John like he had only just realized their respective positions. His hands twitched tighter against John's wrists and his eyes narrowed.

"What are you playing at, John?"

"You really want me to say it?" John muttered, and he could feel heat in his cheeks as he flushed.

"Think you better," Arthur replied, his tone oddly grave, "because I'm about done with this game of yours, where you pretend that what you _want_ is sweet nothings, but you _settle_ for what you can get. Where you pretend that I'm _forcing_ you to be this way."

John was actually struck silent a moment at that, eyes wide. "That's— what? That ain't what … I _liked_ it. I liked _all_ of it. You think I woulda _let_ you if I didn't? You'd _know_ if I was _really_ fightin you!"

Arthur looked oddly lost for a moment, his grip on John's wrists loosening. "You started in with all that shit about _nice_, and then started with Abigail—"

"Abigail was so, _so_ nice Arthur," John said, sincerely, "but we aren't nice men, are we?"

It wasn't really saying anything, but it seemed to click for Arthur, to make something turn over in his mind. His mouth quirked up at the side, his eyes going dark.

"No," he said, softly, "I reckon we ain't." He didn't move, but somehow he seemed to settle more of his weight onto John, pressing him down into the dirt, warm against the length of his body.

"You know," John said, arching up against him, twisting his wrists in Arthur's hands without any real intent to get free, "she told me I ought to be nicer to _you._"

"That so?" Arthur said thoughtfully, though his tone was also slightly disbelieving. "You plannin' to be _nice_ to me, Johnny?"

And _there_ it was, the familiar, condescending pet name that never failed to make heat gather in John's gut. "Dunno," John drawled in response, arching again, rubbing his hard dick up against Arthur's, hot even through two layers of denim, "are you plannin' to be _mean_ to _me_?"

Arthur growled. He snapped his right hand off of John's wrist to wrap around his throat, right under his jaw, pushing John hard into the dirt. "You really been trying my patience lately, you know that?" Arthur hissed against John's cheek, squeezing hard enough that John next breath was a high-pitched wheeze. "This whole week, watchin' you try out this little _fantasy_ of yours, and all I wanted was to _put you over my knee_ and remind you what you _really_ need."

"_God_," John gasped, at that image of that in his head. Even thinking about It was humiliating. "You should—do. That," he hissed out, disjointed, using the hand that Arthur had freed to claw at the back of Arthur's shirt, pulling out the tails, seeking skin.

"_You_," Arthur replied, his tone low, almost _flirtatious_, even as he was squeezing harder at John's throat, hard enough that black spots started in the corners of his vision, "should stop tryin' to tell me _what to do_."

If John had the air for it, he might have apologized. Instead, he just dug his fingers into Arthur's hair to try to pull the other man's mouth against his own.

But then Arthur _let go_—of John's wrist and of his throat, moving his weight off of him. John gasped a moment, lack of air making him feel like he was spinning, the abrupt loss of Arthur's weight pinning him down leaving him feeling unmoored. "What are— Arthur?"

When he finally caught enough air to push himself up on his elbows he found Arthur standing over him, feet on either side of John's thighs, slowly unbuckling his gunbelt.

"You think it's that easy, Johnny? He said coolly, any flirtatiousness completely gone. He didn't drop his belt when it was unbuckled, just slowly, deliberately, slid the holster off, letting it, and the gun in it, fall to the dirt. The knife sheath was dropped next. "That you just come here and say you want me, and I give in, like I been _pining_ for you?"

John blinked, off-kilter. "No, I—no, but—"

Arthur pushed the bullets on his belt out of their loops, letting them scatter.

"You think you learned your lesson, is that is? Well I," Arthur folding is belt in half, the buckle tucked into his palm, "I think I need to make sure you _remember it_."

John eyed the folded-over leather belt with wide eyes, swallowing audibly.

"Get up," Arthur demanded, and John scrambled to obey him. Arthur circled around him once John was on his feet, eyeing him up and down like John was horse he wasn't sure he was interested in buying. "Take it off," he said shortly, when he was behind John.

"Take what—" John started to ask, but Arthur grabbed John by the hair and yanked his head back, John's neck painfully arched.

"Don't try me, boy," he hissed, right into John's ear. "Strip. Now."

They were surrounded by trees, and they weren't anywhere near a road, but still, they were hardly in a hidden, secluded spot. Still, John the moment Arthur released his hair, John did as ordered, yanking his shirt off over his head with out bothering with the buttons, dropped his gunbelt to the ground and kicked off his boots and his jeans, suspenders still attached. He had just started to unbutton his union suit when Arthur shoved him hard between the shoulder blades, making John stumble, barely getting his hands up in time to stop his face slamming into the trunk of the nearest tree.

"Fuck," John spat out, involuntarily. "Jesus, Arthur, I was doing what you—" and then cut himself off with a yelp when Arthur's belt striped across the back of his thighs. "Fuck!"

"Quit your bitching, boy," Arthur mocked, gripping John's union suit at the back of his neck and yanking it down until it tore. He yanked John's hands away from the tree to pull it off his arms, putting his other hand against the back of John's head to mash his face against the bark. "You _asked for this_."

The second stripe of the belt struck across John's bare skin. John clenched his teeth against the shout this time, slamming his hands back up against the tree trunk. His fingers scraped against the bark with the next lick, wood digging under his nails.

"Shoulda done this _years_ ago," Arthur taunted, whipping the tail of the belt right across John's ass twice in quick succession, "maybe you wouldn't'a turned out to be such a little _shit_."

John gritted his teeth so tight they creaked, jerking when the belt cracked across his ass again, the strike coming swifter now.

"Nothing to say now? You was sure mouthy enough before."

"What do you—_ah, shit!—_want me to say? That I'm—_fuck_—sorry_?_" John choked out, squirming fruitlessly. It should have been humiliating, and it _was_, but every slap of Arthur's leather belt against his skin seemed to send a bolt of lightning right to his dripping cock_._

Arthur hummed thoughtfully and laid one more blow across the back across John's thighs, crisscrossing the welts already rising there, and then John heard the thump of the belt hitting the ground as Arthur pressed up against his back, the denim of his trousers rubbing painfully against the raw skin.

Arthur put his mouth right up against John's ear. "I want you to _beg me_."

"_Please_," John immediately replied, almost reflexively. "God, _please_, Arthur just—something, _anything_, hurt me, fuck me, just—"

Arthur twisted John's face to the side and kissed him. Shoved his tongue past his teeth when John gasped for air. Ran his other hand up between John's legs, trailing his fingers from the back of his balls to the crease of his ass with a touch so light it almost tickled. Pressed the pad of his thumb against John's asshole and tightened his grip on John's hair when he jerked.

"Ask me again" Arthur murmured against the corner of John's mouth, thumb pressing harder, John's hole twitching against the pressure.

"Please,_ please_ fuck me—" They had only gone that far once before, but John knew as well as Arthur did that, with the heat in their blood right now, nothing else would satisfy.

"_Convince_ me, Johnny," Arthur pressed.

"I, I want it, it'll be so good, so _fucking_ good, please, just—" Arthur's hand moved away, but only for a moment. Came back and swiped over John's asshole with something cool and slick, barely dipping the tips of his fingers inside before replacing them with the broad head of his cock.

God, he had forgotten how fucking _big_ Arthur had felt stretching his asshole wide open.

He didn't resist when Arthur pulled him back by his hair, arching his back as he forced himself inside John's ass. Just gasped a long string of swear words and exclamations at the long, slow, inexorable press of it, of Arthur's thick cock spiting him wide open until he could finally feel the buttons of Arthur's trousers against the sore skin of his ass. He felt like he could feel him all the way up into his _stomach_, like he had created a space for himself that nothing else would ever fill.

"You can scream, if you want," Arthur whispered to him, more a threat than a reassurance, his breath slightly shallow. "Ain't no one gonna hear you but me."

And at Arthur first jarring, selfish thrust, John did.

It _hurt_, all of it—Arthur's hand in John's hair, his clothes against John's naked, welted skin, the tree rough against John's bare front, and of course, Arthur's brutally hard thrusts, not pausing, rubbing his asshole raw despite the slick, grinding up against his insides in a way that made John whimper, made him squirm to get away, made him see _stars_.

"I'm gonna fuckin' _ruin_ you," Arthur grunted, shoving a knee between John's legs to force them further apart so that the next thrust felt like it went up into his throat, made John jerk and arch his back and whine, one hand reaching behind him to clamp down around Arthur's hip, the other gripping desperately at his cock. "You're gonna feel me for _days_, boy," he promised, grinding deep, raking his nails across the sore, red skin of John's ass until John was clenching involuntarily around his length, muscles spasming, eyes rolled back in his head, gasping wetly. "You're gonna remember who you _belong to_—"

John's breath froze in his chest and his vision went black when he came. It seemed to go on forever, trembling with the force of it, a new, almost painful spike with every new thrust into his sloppy, swollen hole, until he was keening, clawing at Arthur hip.

Arthur clamped a hand over John's gasping mouth and kept thrusting, panting like a bellows, a half dozen more times before he jerked against John's back, and John felt a rush of warmth spilling into him as Arthur groaned against his neck.

"… Fuck," Arthur muttered after several long moment, not a complaint, and John whined involuntarily as Arthur dragged his softening member out of his ass. His breath hitched when he felt Arthur's thumb replace it, dipping past the swollen red rim and holding him open a moment longer, while Arthur's hot spend dripped down towards his balls. It was fucking filthy, unnatural, _immoral_, it was—

"Wish I had a camera," Arthur murmured, almost absently, "so I could take a picture of how you look right now."

"_Jesus_," John gasped out, letting his cheek fall against the tree trunk in front of him, letting it take his weight while he shuddered through the aftershocks.

"… C'mere," Arthur said after a moment, and he twisted them around so that it was his back against the tree, John panting against the soft cotton of his worn work shirt, Arthur's hand rubbing soothingly over the sore flesh of John's ass. He lowered them to the ground after a while, John sprawled out, still naked, across his lap while Arthur ran his hands almost absently over his bare skin.

"… was that what you came out here looking for John?" He finally asked, sounding fairly meditative, as he fished out a cigarette from his shirt pocket.

John took it from him before he could even put it between his lips. "Sure," he replied, looking Arthur right in the eyes as he lit the cigarette between John's lips, John's gaze utterly sincere, "it _was_ nice, wasn't it?"


End file.
